Almost all negative behaviors and addictions are rooted in something.

Woke up this morning thinking and praying for Amanda , feeling a little discouraged that I didn’t make more of an impact but standing firm in my faith that seeds were planted and they just might not be mine to cultivate. As I prayed with her yesterday I told her that almost all negative behaviors and addictions are rooted in something.  In other words these things are not the problem but the result of a greater need or hurt in our lives.  Until the root is dealt with freedom will seem like a twisted cruel trick played on those who can’t really have it.

I know my addiction was a result of the pain and neglect that I experienced and never dealt with. It came from the guilt and shame I carried with me for so long. Honestly at times I am in awe that I did not succumb to it. God recently brought some healing and revelation about some of my pain. My memories are so few and far between of my younger years and most the memories that I do recall have something to do with death. I know how morbid that sounds but it seems as if I was surrounded by death all the time. The first death I remember was that of my grandmother on my mother’s side, she was the true matriarch of the family and I think both my mother and grandfather were devastated by her loss. I was six years old at the time and vaguely remember being at the hospital but I was too young to go into her room so I stood on the street with my father and waved to her from there, I can picture that in my mind. That is all I recall about her or her death and I’m not even sure if that is a real memory because my sister shared that with me.

 The next death I remember was more traumatic to me because I felt responsible in some way. I think I was in third or fourth grade and I had been to the dentist. I can still remember the old dentist chair and the pictures of clowns he had on his walls, those clowns would be significant in my later years. I can’t remember his name but it started with a B. I had to have some extensive work done and for some reason I remember I was having a tooth pulled but it was impacted and he could not get it after trying for a VERY LONG time (this experience is why I am scared of the dentist to this day) Finally that evening after being in his chair for hours I was sent to an oral surgeon who completely knocked me out and performed emergency surgery to extract the tooth.  It was quite traumatic to say the least for a young child. A week or so later I returned to Dr. B for a follow up to make sure I was healing properly. As I sat in the chair with the clowns on the wall watching me I was so scared and nervous ( I can still picture those clowns perfectly and in detail). Dr. B tried to calm me down understanding my fear was a result of my experience a week before. He looked at my incision and sent me on my way saying I was healing properly. Later I learned after I left the examination room he had a heart attack and died instantly, I was his last patient. I found out that evening and I believe on some level I blamed myself because I was so scared and nervous plus the week before was the awful experience for both of us because he was unable to pull my tooth.  I carried the guilt of this man’s death on my tiny shoulders and it just set the stage for me to feel guilty about the deaths that were about to besiege my family.

It would be the next year that David killed himself, 6 months later Norman ( my dad’s best friend) killed himself, about 8 years after that my mother’s death would happen and then in ’82 my grandfather’s suicide. Now I don’t believe I carried any guilt about David’s or Norman’s suicides although these deaths affected me tremendously but my mother’s death is a different story. I thought I killed her. I was scared that I killed her and didn’t remember it.   I was literally scared that I got up in my sleep and murdered her.  I was so scared about that, that I couldn’t even think about it.   It was after her death that the tormenting recurring nightmare with the clowns. In the nightmare mother and David were dressed as clowns (the clowns from the dentist office ) riding tricycles  taunting me and accusing me of killing her. They would chase me with evil smirks shouting at me as I ran down the hall trying to escape. It was the hall in my home on Van Pelt but in my dream it was endless and I would just run looking back terrified of what would happen if they caught me. I dreamed it every night for so long and would finally wake up in a cold sweat crying relieved for a moment that it was a dream but then the reality of being alone in that house would sink in and I would cry more until I gathered the strength to get up and go on with my day. It was exhausting. It was during this time that I wished I could go into a coma for awhile to escape my reality. I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to be able to rest. It was such a very dark time.

When I first got saved my mentor at the time would pray with me trying to bring forth healing. She told me that usually we can go back through prayer and revelation from the Holy Spirit and see where Satan planted the lie that we believed and how that lie grew and caused us so much pain.  He got me with the lie that I was responsible for the death of that dentist  when I was a child which made me accept the lies that I was responsible for my mother’s , sist The lie I believed as a very young child is that I was responsible for the death of my dentist. Once I accepted and believed that lie it was so much easier for him to plant the lies that I was responsible for the deaths of my family. That is the pain I carried for so very long and used drugs and alcohol to numb. But God has healed me completely and I know that I carried way too many burdens that were not mine to carry.

My hopes are that others can find the freedom I have found by dealing with the root of their pain and addictions. God wants us to have the freesome he so freely provides but we have to take action.